In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Weekly Open Thread with My Sort Of Rollercoaster

tigtog

The World’s Slowest Rollercoaster is hosting this Open Thread. Please natter/chatter/vent/rant on anything* you like over this weekend and throughout the week.

a hilltop rollercoaster sculpture which pedestrians can walk on and through
Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth’s Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain pedestrian rollercoaster

So, what have you been up to? What would you rather be up to? What’s been awesome/awful?
Reading? Watching? Making? Meeting?
What has [insert awesome inspiration/fave fansquee/guilty pleasure/dastardly ne’er-do-well/threat to all civilised life on the planet du jour] been up to?

* Netiquette footnotes:
* There is no off-topic on the Weekly Open Thread, but consider whether your comment would be on-topic on any recent thread and thus better belongs there.
* If your comment touches on topics known to generally result in thread-jacking, you will be expected to take the discussion to #spillover instead of overshadowing the social/circuit-breaking aspects of this thread.

67 thoughts on Weekly Open Thread with My Sort Of Rollercoaster

  2. tigtog, your description of self-destructiveness in terms of the impostor syndrome has been immensely helpful to me. Almost all of my self-hatred – aside from my dysphoric self-hatred – has been rooted in the same thought patterns as the impostor syndrome. Whenever someone praises me, I feel that they’re only saying that because I’m an impostor, and when someone criticizes me, I feel that they’ve found the “real me”. It’s a really nasty thought pattern that I don’t know how to get rid of, but at least I’m able to recognize it better now.

    1. TC, I’m glad it’s at least somewhat helpful. Recognition of the elements of a negative behaviour pattern is the first step towards lessening its harmful effect on you, but it certainly isn’t magic. It takes time and usually expert assistance to develop mindful tactics to combat each element of the pattern effectively.

      Best luck with the next steps.

  3. Peggy-Leggy update: My recovery has slowed way down in the last week. The physical therapist has had me do a test to see if I could catch myself if I started to fall without hurting myself, and I’ve failed it twice in the last week, so I am still using crutches for safety and support in public, which is really frustrating. Also, over the last few years, rigorous exercise, mostly running, has been a huge part of managing my ptsd. In the last week, my symptoms have ticked way up. I feel pretty trapped, and it sucks. A lot of people have been trying to help and offer suggestions, but nothing compares to a nice long run. For the first time, I am considering medication to help me cope.

    Also, I’m kind of lonely. I’ve been single for over six years, and at first I was very happy to be, but now it’s gotten stale, and I wouldn’t mind some affection and support. Of course, saying that you want that doesn’t make it magically appear on your doorstep. Online dating is depressing as fuck. Also, trying to date when you’re in the middle of ptsd hell probably is a horrible idea.

    Not the best week over here.

    1. Jeez, Peggy, that is some week!

      It sucks how these things all seem to add to each other in a kind of a snowball effect. At least you haven’t fallen into my habit of immediate denial. I also have the hardest time diagnosing exactly what is bothering me/what is wrong, about any given situation, whereas you seem to have figured out what you want and need with pinpoint clarity.

      I’ll say this too. I have a great wife with whom I’m celebrating 20 years of wedded bliss, but I still feel lonely A LOT.

      1. Thanks Steve. I realize what you’re saying. Having a SO won’t fix things or mean never feeling lonely again. But it would be nice.

    2. I hear you on the online dating, Peggy. I dutifully did it for years and years so that people would stop telling me that the reason I was single was that I wasn’t “making an effort” and it sucked every single time, to the point that by the time I gave it up, just logging on and scrolling through the listings was enough to depress me for the rest of the evening. It’s miserable.

      I’m really sorry to hear about your recovery slowing down and the knock-on effects to your PTSD coping strategies. Would it make any sense to try exercises that don’t require your lower body, like weight-lifting or something like that?

      In any case, I send you moral and emotional support. You will heal, even if it’s more slowly than would be ideal, and you will be able to run again, and you will be able to manage the PTSD again. I know it’s hard, if not impossible, to believe it when you’re being brought down like this, but this period of time will come to an end, and you will feel better again. That doesn’t make this time better, but try to hold on to the knowledge that there’re better times coming.

      1. Thank you for the kind words. I really appreciate them. Also, the commiserating about the online dating. It really is the only way that I feel like I’m “doing something about it,” but it’s so sad. Anytime there’s anyone on there that I think is interesting, if I email them, they don’t write back. The people who do write me are not very interesting to me at all.

        I updated my profile, and mentioned that I had broken my leg, and that did lead to some very random responses. (I’m sure you can imagine.) The oddest one was from a guy who was like “we have so much in common, since you can’t walk or run or move, and I really hate any kind of exercise or activity.” Every other thing on my profile is about how I love being outside and active. There’s pictures of me hiking, surfing, and cliff diving. I wrote him back and pointed out that in a few weeks, I’d be back to being a jock, and we’d have nothing in common.

        Le sigh.

    3. I’m sorry things are so difficult right now, Peggy.

      I’ve been single for 8 years now, and haven’t even tried online dating — I’m just too afraid of the whole “disclosure” issue.

      I did meet my former spouse through the antediluvian equivalent — personal ads in New York Magazine!

      1. I had a single date with a really nice trans guy on there once. Unfortunately, even though he was really cool, we didn’t really click in that way. He had come right out and said it on his profile. It seems like that would be a double edged sword. You’d weed out some awkward situations of having to explain it later down the line, but you’d probably also open yourself up to some less than delightful emails.

        Falling in love is such a random thing. How does anyone manage to do it?

    4. After spending the bulk of the day yesterday with my bestie watching Harry Potter and Labyrinth, I am feeling better today. A whole lot less jangly and jittery.

    5. I remember one of Chally’s last posts here was about not feeling obligated to find someone before its too late, and I remember that really helping my perspective on dating. I had spent the better part of 10 years mostly single, with a few utterly disappointing experiences thrown in and the idea that I was not obligated to be coupled up was one I found liberating. Yes, I was still lonely, and loneliness sucks, but I was at least able to recognize that being single wasn’t a huge failure on my part and that I had a lot of great non-romantic relationships.

      But yeah, I’ve done my fair share of Internet dating and while I’ve met some cool people who ended up being good friends, it can be ridiculously disheartening, so I can sympathize.

      1. I don’t feel any obligation. I spent the last six years single because I really wasn’t feeling a commitment. I didn’t feel like I had anything to put into being someone’s SO. Now, aside from mental health issues, I am feeling like it would be nice. Unfortunately, there isn’t a switch to flip to magically make it happen.

  6. So I used to post here every now and then, but haven’t for a while. Just had some big changes in life however.

    I’ve finally been accepted onto the disability pension, a year after I put in my initial application. I was originally rejected, then I appealed the decision, and that appeal spent ten months sitting in a queue somewhere in Canberra waiting for one of the overworked DHS workers to look at it.
    But it has finally been granted which is such a relief. Plus having a year’s worth of backpay has helped immeasurably.

    This has left me with some time to think about parts of my identity I’ve been avoiding thinking about. I’ve identified as genderqueer for several years now, but recently that hasn’t been sitting as easily as it used to.
    I’ve started thinking about whether ‘woman’ is a better term for how I identify, and how transitioning (both socially and medically) might be appropriate/necessary. I mentioned this to my GP at my last appointment, plus will soon start seeing my counsellor again (who I know is really good on this sort of thing), but haven’t yet spoken to my psychiatrist at all.

    I don’t entirely know where this thought process will end up, let alone how I’m going to be talking to family about any of this. But yeah, it’s happening.

    1. I just saw this, and wanted to say that I’m glad to hear about your disability pension. And, however you end up deciding to proceed, my very best to you on the gender concerns.

  7. From the other thread [i.e. Shameless Self Promotion Sunday ~ mods]:

    ninjanurse
    May 4, 2014 at 4:47 pm | Permalink | Reply
    Again, the NYT offers the Libertarian answer to poverty– use the poor as organ donors. Desperately Selling a Kidney

    “Using the poor as organ donors” sounds so simplistic: give the organs to the rich folks, right?

    Right…. until, that is, you recognize that there are a lot of non-rich RECIPIENTS who can’t get kidneys, and that the transplant list isn’t income-based. (And that isn’t a small issue. Actually, there’s a decent argument that the costs and risks of ongoing dialysis are, as with most things, more bearable by the rich.)

    But that’s only the simple part.

    At heart I would ask opponents to question their dedication to paternalism and the removal of agency from the poor. Because it seems pretty clear that at SOME point it is perfectly reasonable to undergo a medical procedure in exchange for money. Whether it’s donating plasma; or giving up a hunk of liver; or being a surrogate; or being a test subject in a psych study; or giving up one of your two kidneys; or something else; it’s just a question of how much you get paid, and what the risk is. Kind of like life in general.

    Those details matter because contracts range from wonderfully beneficial to deeply exploitative. But we don’t deny agency to contract generally just because some contracts are bad; we try instead to make them NOT be bad. And we do that because we recognize that both parties to a contract are going to benefit, so long as we can take it out of the non-slimy category.

    If you want to avoid problems, then propose safeguards. (For example, I think that a kidney donor should be guaranteed a new kidney if her one remaining kidney ever fails, even if she would otherwise not be near the top of the list.) Propose minimum standards for trying to ensure agency. Propose minimum payments to try to minimize exploitation.

    But don’t be paternalistic.

    Ask yourself: Would YOU sell a kidney? I would. It would take a lot of money and it would take the right safeguards, but I’d do it. It would help my family and it would help me, and obviously it would also improve the life of a recipient. Let’s imagine it was $100,000 with a ton of safeguards.

    Now, those benefits to me are relative. Although I sure as heck don’t have a spare $100,000, I am certainly less needy than a lot of people out there. It will change my life for the better, but not as much as some.

    So ask yourself: If I am a highly educated person with some medical training and if I am highly skilled in evaluating risk and if I would take “Deal K” to sell my kidney: how bloody obnoxious do I have to be, in order to deny someone the opportunity to take the SAME deal if it will benefit them MORE than me, and if they want it MORE than I do? Should I sit on my high horse and tell them that it’s “permissible” to work two jobs at minimum wage for 30 years, but it’s “unconscionable” to sell a kidney for $100k and change their entire life? That it’s OK to join the Army instead? To work as a lumberjack or a miner or in a factory, or to drop out of college to feed their family, but not sell a kidney?

    Who the hell am I to tell them what to do, once I have concluded that the underlying deal is high-paying enough and low-risk enough so it’s not exploitative? It’s bloody patriarchal BS is what it is, and I have no idea why so many putative liberals ascribe to it.

    I wonder where in the Libertarian scheme of things you put the person who sold a kidney, and now needs one. Do you chalk it up to ‘bad choices’?

    Libertarian? No. Humanitarian is more like it.

    As to “where do you put them in line:” At the front, naturally, because that is a moral requirement if you are allowing them to give up a kidney in the first place. Not to mention that it is a very rational way to induce people to give up kidneys, along with such other reasonable requirements like “guaranteed future medical care if your donation results in health problems.” Of course, those sorts of things are expensive benefits which would reduce the up front payment, but so be it.

    Fortunately, most kidney donors have perfectly normal and healthy lives, notwithstanding your “scaaaary science we don’t know so much about this yet” screed . So this wouldn’t stop the vast increase in availability.

    Want to think of it in an entirely different fashion? Try this: We already allow people to “swap” kidneys, which is to say that you can do a chain of donations and end up obtaining a kidney for your friend, even if you’re not compatible with them If you get $100k for a kidney and stick it in the bank, then it will suffice to buy you (or your friend, or your family) a kidney if they ever need one–most folks don’t. And if you die with the money unused, then your kids inherit the $100k.

    Want an entirely different approach? Sell them for super high prices, to incredibly rich people. Entry into the “need a kidney transplant” market isn’t affected by supply. For every kidney which you sell to a billionaire for $250,000, you end up moving all the other folks up the list, whether rich or poor.

    But whatever approach you prefer, “just say no” is the wrong one.

    Yes, exploitation is bad. But exploitation can be controlled, especially in the US, and especially with sufficient advance prep (It’s a lot harder to stop it than to prevent it in the first place.)

    Don’t be so hasty to sell real people–both donors and recipients–down the river just to stop some slippery-slope straw man of potential harm.

  8. [CN: transmisogyny]

    I made the mistake of reading a TERF blog. Again. I just wish they could leave us alone, but I guess I’m the fool here for actually clicking on the links to that blog. It especially hurts when they accuse us of “appropriating womanhood” or “denying biology.” Or when those trans women TERFs talk about how I’m “deluded” for me regarding my body as female despite having dysphoria. I guess the reason I keep reading TERF blogs is that I’m afraid of the TERF-inspired voice in my head that tells me “You’re just a deluded male hiding from The Truth.”

    1. Would it help to think of reading these blogs as a kind of emotional self-harm? That’s what it makes me think of–you’re giving the internal insecurity and pain you describe an external source, sort of making it visible. I hope you find a way to stop. You don’t deserve to suffer like that, and the opinions of TERFs aren’t worth shit.

      1. [CN: self-harm]

        I think you’re right. I can’t imagine physically self-harming myself (although on some occasions I starve myself in an act of self-loathing), but I suppose it makes sense to say that I’m engaging in a kind of emotional self-harm.

        It’s probably happening due to the constant stress that’s been weighing me down these days. I mentally beat myself up for having stress and not being able to really counter it effectively.
        On the one hand, I get angry at myself for being selfish and rude, and on the other hand, I tell myself that being anything more than a self-abnegating doormat is “immoral”. No matter what manifests, I hate myself for never being good enough.

        I’m considering whether it might be wise to just move out of my step-dad’s place soon and stay with a friend who previously offered to let me stay at her place indefinitely. She’s a fellow trans lesbian who has been very kind and empathetic towards me, and she was one of the friends who helped me escape my dad’s place. She made the offer knowing that it would put her at risk of confronting my dad.

        Also, if I stay with a non-family person for a while, maybe I’ll get a better chance to take care of myself and learn how to not depend on family members. I just hope I can stay away from my dad…the last thing that should happen is my friend being hurt by my dad.

        1. I think staying with your friend sounds like a healthy, healing, lovely opportunity. Please allow her to help take care of you. I don’t know where I’d be without the love and help of my best friend, and it means a lot to me to be able to help her. I’m sure it would mean just as much to your friend to be able to help you.

        2. I really want to. One time, when I was talking about how dangerous and abusive my dad was in conjunction with my desire to leave the house some day, she and her friend offered to be close to my house as I tried to leave in case my dad attempted to restrain and hurt me. They actually offered to physically defend me from my dad. That didn’t end up happening, but they helped me out a lot in other ways. Regardless, their gesture of support back then has meant a lot to me.

          Personally, I also see the opportunity to live with a friend as an opportunity to mature and grow stronger. In my childhood, I was forced to grow up too quickly, and a result I often wish I could be younger again in order to compensate for all that I lost in that time. Since I can’t do that, I have maintained the mentality of my younger self.
          Because of this, a lot of people have called me immature. I’m unkempt, messy, indecisive, irritable, moody, and easily frightened.

          It is precisely because I think like a kid that I feel too afraid of the future to even do anything. It’s almost impossible for me to get out of my comfort zone. Maybe if I live with a friend without any family members, I’ll be able to move out of my comfort zone more and try to move past my child-like mentality. Regardless, I need to heal in a way that doesn’t cause me to regress. I just need to move on for once in my life. I can patch up the childhood grief on my own time, not make it my priority. I hope I’m making sense.

        3. You’re making a lot of sense to me. My respect for your friendship is immense. A big part of being a friend is helping, and another big part is letting yourself be helped. You need a safe space, and it seems like your friend can give that to you. That’s a wonderful thing.

        5. Yes, yes. Your friend sounds awesome, and you deserve awesome friends.

          Your family obviously loves you and are trying but it sounds like they’re just making it harder on you.

  9. So, my bff is renting us her house for a great price. She and her family moved to Austin. Mainly so she could be with the guy she’s been having an affair with, unbeknownst to her husband. Anyway, last month the boyfriend killed himself in a meth induced paranoid freak out. My friend discovered him. And found out that he’d downloaded spyware onto her phone, plus a bunch of other crazy shit. She has been having a problem dealing with all this so she decided to do meth whenever she felt upset. Not the best coping tool. 10 days ago she drove herself to a hospital demanding an x ray because she was convinced she had a tracking device in her.( meth makes crazy things seem logical) The dr committed her to the psych ward for evaluation, her husband has found about about the affair and drug use and is filing for divorce. She’s happy because she can’t stand him. And now, theyre going to have to sell the house I’m renting because its their only joint property. Which means I have only a few months to come up with several thousand dollars for a down payment on a house of our own. We already support my daughter, her boyfriend and their child. Plus helping out my parents, who have been drained dry by my junkie brother ( who is currently in jail, for stealing a car to get to his hearing…FOR CAR THEFT. And yes, he has his own vehicle) so saying money is tight is a goddamn understatement. I am really sick of other people’s drug choices fucking up my life. Everyone keeps talking sympathetically about addiction being a disease, but I’m still stuck holding the bag and I don’t do any drugs at all. I’ll be sympathetic when I’m not the one following users around with a shit shovel, cleaning up their messes. Which makes me the bad person now, because I’m not understanding enough.

    1. I don’t think it makes you a bad person, or if it does, I guess I’m the same kind. There are certain mental illnesses where I know it’s a mental illness and the person is suffering, but you know what? I don’t give a shit because that person is fucking hurting everyone around them and not taking any responsibility. Having an illness isn’t a goddamn “get out of behaving like a decent human being” card.

      Anyway, I’m really sorry, because that is a shitty situation, none of it is of your making at all, and in your shoes I would be fucking furious as hell.

      1. In total agreement with EG (thanks for saying it EG because I couldn’t quite put the words together). You have every right to be furious and resentful. I wish you the best of all possible luck in finding that new home.

      2. Oh, I don’t think it makes me a bad person either but my other friends start on that ” well, meth really does affect their thinking and it really is hard to break etc etc” And I’m just fed up with hearing that crap. Right now I don’t care. I don’t care that it messes up their brains. I don’t care that its hard to detox off. I don’t care. Their dumbass decision to blow it up their noses in the first place shouldn’t be my problem but it is. And then I get to listen to her talk about how NA showed her it wasn’t a good coping skill, and how she just needs the tools to help her cope with the fact the meth head she was fucking killed himself. And all I can think is, gee I really wish there was some trite little affirmation I could say or a coping tool that would put money in my bank account, but you’re learning how to not be an idiot so I guess all is well. Except, yanno, I might not have a place to live n all.

        Ugh.

        1. That’s the thing, right? I’m sure all that’s true and it affects her brain and so on, but is she even trying to make amends? Has she taken any responsibility for the shit she’s just handed you? Made any move to try and help you cope with it? No? Then neither she nor anybody else gets to expect you to be sympathetic and that’s that. The world in general and you in particular do not revolve around her personal growth.

        2. Quite the opposite. According to her, her husband is just being unreasonable because she just made one mistake ( that he knows of. She’s been having affairs for 9 years. Plus one night stands) and the whole thing is just him being a dick. He won’t let her see the kids ( she let the crazy boyfriend hang around them) and she’s more concerned about getting her own place so she can have her new boyfriend over. The new guy is the guy she starting having sex with the day after her other boyfriend killed himself. Until all this blew up, I had pretty much restricted our contact to just paying rent and letting her know it was mailed off. She didn’t notice the distance because she was wrapped up in her own drama. So now, I’m having to listen to her because I’m afraid to alienate her and have more problems in regards to housing. But once we are out and have a place, her ass is going to be blocked. No adress will be given, phone will be blocked…all of it. Its very difficult to provoke me into ending a 20+ year friendship, but she’s managed.

    2. One more thought: you’re a regular here and people know you and like you and value you. I can’t be the only one who’d be willing to help out a little in an emergency. Is there some way to make that happen?

      1. I had the exact same thought. I forget what it’s called, but I know there’s a website where people can raise money, for pretty much any purpose they want to?

        1. I’ve had two friends use gofundme.com in the last six months (one when she was being threatened with legal action by an ex-cop, one for transition surgery expenses).

        3. Thank you both. I haven’t shared it on Facebook because there are people on my Facebook who do not need to know, and would ask questions, and who are also friends with her ( landlord friend) so if you have any ideas where I could share it, I would appreciate it. Other than here, I have no ideas.

        5. Or better, because then it wouldn’t hit mutual friends of your landlord’s, I could signal boost it on Twitter. I don’t have many followers or anything, but you never know. But only if you say it’s OK, of course.

        6. If you don’t mind sharing it, I dont mind you sharing it. I’ve known her since we were 12 so all of our friends and family are intertwined. The resulting drama would be , well I’m sure you can imagine. And she’d make sure to stir it regularly.

        7. I also left out the meth and affair details, so if it ever does get around to her, she can’t make a stink about that, at least.

        8. Annnnd the ac crapped out. I’m afraid if I start laughing or crying, it will never stop. So I’ve settled for a wry look of annoyance.

        10. Just put it on Twitter–been a long day, so I’ll do it again tomorrow morning when it’s not the middle of the night.

          Thank goodness you awesomely fixed the AC–summer is coming soon and it ain’t no joke.

        11. Summer is already here. Has been since March. Already hit 100 this past week, so ac is definitely a requirement. It was 90 inside. During the day that doesn’t bother me so much, but I can’t sleep in the heat. Plus, we have a 7 month old in the house. But I took the cover plate off and cleaned the a coil fins, and thankfully that worked.

        13. I should be hvac certified by now. We’ve never had good luck with rental homes and ac/,heat. Dunno why.

    3. Also, depending on what kind of lease you have, I would think there’s a possibility that you might have the right to stay there for some period of time despite the house being sold, but I guess that only works if you have a lease for a definite term (like a year), as opposed to a month-to-month lease.

      1. We have a lease til August, so I’m hoping a divorce court judge will recognize that. It buys us time, at least but it’s going to be a stressful scramble to save up the money. Mainly, I’m angry that I was told in a text, all offhand. Then she went right back to her woe is me, why is everyone so judgemental self absorption, and look what I learned in narc anon, aren’t I so wonderful for going.

        1. So sorry pheeno, sending cyber hugs.
          And very much what EG said: ” Having an illness isn’t a goddamn “get out of behaving like a decent human being” card.”

  10. I heard from a complete stranger a day or two ago about something I never, ever in a million years expected anyone to get in touch with me about. I’ve posted comments a couple of times since I’ve been here about my experiences with a particular doctor I saw regularly for several years beginning when I was 11 — experiences which I never labeled at the time as being sexually abusive, because he was such an authority figure and said he had reasons for “examining” me the way he did, but which I never told my mother about because I was too embarrassed, and which everyone to whom I’ve ever spoken about them has immediately said it was abuse. See these two comments:

    http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/02/13/the-shit-list/#comment-433253 and

    http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2013/12/06/pigtails-and-pedophiles/#comment-700856

    >

    1. Still, despite basically accepting that he did abuse me and that it did have some long-term effects on me as described in one of those comments, there’s always been some lingering doubt as to whether maybe it really wasn’t abuse, because if it was, then how come nobody ever came forward and complained about it? He treated a whole lot of children over a lengthy career, and they couldn’t all have kept silent like I did.

      But then a couple of days ago, I opened my Flickr account for the first time in more than a year to look for a photo, and found the following message on my “Flickr-mail” account, which I hadn’t even known existed:

      [identifying information removed]

      XXXXX sent you a FlickrMail 14 months ago
      Please contact me, I was also abused by Dr. Archibald
      I’m trying to reach DonnaL. Saw the post from years back about the Doctor. I too was abused by Dr. Archibald as a kid in NYC. I would love to talk to you. My name is XXXXX I hope this finds you. My e-mail is XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

      Hope to hear from you.

      XXXXXXX

      I was really quite shocked. Wow. So I guess it really was sexual abuse after all, and I’m not being appropriative of people to whom it “really” happened, as I used to worry sometimes? And maybe I wasn’t the only one?

      It feels so strange, after more than 40 years, to hear from someone who basically had the same thing happen to them. But I sent an email to XXXXX saying that I’d finally gotten their message. Maybe they’ll write back to me.

      2. On the one hand, it’s terrible that yet another person suffered because of that abuser, but I never really had any doubt that you were not the only child he hurt, so I’m glad you have received the validation about what he did to you. How brave of your correspondent to reach out like that, and I also think it was brave of you to write back. I hope the connection helps you both.

      3. So, I heard back from them, and wrote back to them again, and without going into any of the sordid details, I can say this: it was the same. The same! Just about all of it. The same things done, the same explanations that it was all part of the “examination” process, the same inability to tell anyone about it given the intimidating dynamic between little Jewish child and patrician WASP authority figure in a white coat back in the 1960’s-1970’s, the same decades of struggling to understand what happened, and feelings of shame for having allowed it to happen. Everything the same. Kind of unbelievable.

        I sort of had to disclose my trans history in order to tell them my own story — hopefully that won’t mean I’ll never hear back from them again, but even if I don’t, I think just knowing I wasn’t the only won is helpful to me. And probably makes me feel even more bitter that this man was able to live such a long, distinguished life with no consequences for what he did. (See this 2007 obituary from the Rockefeller University newsletter: http://benchmarks.rockefeller.edu/2007/06/22/reginald-m-archibald/ .)

      4. You’ve been given permission to trust your own truth, to believe your own story. You didn’t misinterpret or make things up, and you are not “crazy”. May you find peace.

  11. Another reason to go back to California: my lilapsophobia (phobia of tornadoes and hurricanes). I used to believe it went away when I was 14, but it still rages on whenever it gets triggered. Today’s trigger? Humid summer air and a severe thunderstorm watch issued by the NWS. That’s it. My phobia can get to me everywhere depending on certain factors, but at least California has literally no significant history of tornadoes whatsoever, and I’ve never experienced a tornado in that state.

    And believe me when I say it’s a serious issue – if I am convinced that my area is at risk of getting hit by tornadoes, regardless of the actual forecast and weather conditions, I will have a full-blown panic attack. I’ve had these panic attacks ever since I was 9, when the phobia first emerged. In those panic attacks, I feel compelled to warn everyone and tell them to prepare for a tornado. At one point my phobia was so difficult to bear that my mom thought it was appropriate to buy me an actual weather radio for my 10th birthday. It was pretty much my teddy bear as a child – I used to sleep with it on occasion, and I found even its presence comforting. (Too bad it’s all broken now.)

    So yeah, the extend of my phobia is significant, and if I have to deal with that phobia being triggered on top of me being already weighed down by other mental issues, I’ll break apart. If I were in a more stable mental state, then I wouldn’t staying in Colorado for a little longer, but that’s not currently the case.

  12. Thank you to everyone donating my gofundme account. Its reached 610 dollars, and while some people may not think thats a lot, to me its amazing. That’s a lot of money, IMO so thank you so much for helping me and my family.

    1. I’m so sorry you’re going through all of this, pheeno. I would donate if I weren’t in a tough living situation myself. Hope everything goes well with you and your family.

  13. My father seems to be getting worse. And is suffering so much. This is all so sudden. I am very upset and feel rather disoriented, as if I took some kind of medicine that’s affecting my thinking.

    2. I’m so sorry, Donna. It’s horrible to know that something is wrong and not know what, and horrible to see someone you love no longer himself. I send you all the support I can.

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